Ordinary Day
by SignedSealedWritten
Summary: A collection of drabbles centering around different characters and moments throughout the series.
1. Breaking the Rules

**Criminal Minds**

**Breaking the Rules**

When you're young, adults tell you to never break the rules. They tell you that the rules are there so that you won't get hurt. Nobody ever externalized that price and let you in on the secret that someone else might get hurt.

As my team and I stood around the dead phone connection, his last words hanging in our ears, the price is so much worse than Sean or I getting grounded.

"Agent Greenaway did not have to die like that."

We tell ourselves that her death is not our fault – but who sent her home? Who broke the rules this time?


	2. Mischief Managed

**Criminal Minds**

**Mischief Managed**

"How long do we have on that bet?" Agent Greenaway asked, perching herself on the edge of Agent Jareau's desk, mischief twinkling in her eyes.

Agent Jareau looked up from her files. "Considering it started in June, and it's September now?" JJ said, stating the obvious. "Two months." Agent Jareau paused, furrowing her brow. "Why?"

Elle raised her eyebrows and nodded towards the glass window providing a view into the bullpen. "Mischief managed." Elle spun off the desk and left her friend's office, closing the door behind her. Curiously amused, JJ stepped away from her desk and took a look out of the window.

She laughed, seeing Garcia sitting on the edge of Morgan's desk. Agents Morgan and Garcia would be buying them drinks tonight.


	3. Chocolate

**Criminal Minds**

"**Chocolate"**

There's a reason that chocolate is nearly synonymous with Valentine's day. Many of the chemicals inside chocolate are known to give the feeling of love, hence, upon eating chocolate, one would feel love. It's a romantic image, chocolate in colorful heart boxes, handed to a loved one on Valentine's day, chocolate roses, chocolate everywhere.

I think it's only Spencer Reid that could possibly equate that same phenomenon to peas.


	4. Dying Greenaway

**Criminal Minds**

"**Dying"**

Death is a truth of our job.

It's a cynical thought, so most of us try not to think about it, but the fact is always there, hanging in the backs of our minds.

Now, it has been brought to the forefront both viciously and unpleasantly.

They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you're dying, but it didn't, not for me. Instead, sorrow was the only emotion left in my body. I saw his face, know how he looks, yet I'll never get the chance to tell my team. I'll never get the chance to tell them who he is. I'll never get the chance to tell them all goodbye. I failed them just as I failed my father, only it's me leaving this time.

Will you wait for me, Dad?


	5. Can you hear me?

**Criminal Minds**

"**Can you hear me?" **

He uttered those words to his next door neighbor, his face pale and drawn. He'd only just pulled into his driveway after a long day of work when he'd heard the gunshot coming from his neighbor's place. He hadn't hesitated to burst into the house, years as a cop lending him bravery. He'd found his neighbor… Aaron, he remembered his name was, crumpled to the floor, a shattered glass lying next to him.

"Sir, can you hear me?"

He got a thankful moan in response as he took the time to check the man's injuries. Gunshot wound to the shoulder. He'd already called 911, heard the sirens off in the distance, getting closer.

"Come on now, keep your eyes open." He pushed his hand through blonde hair. The guy was an FBI agent, he remembered slowly. He'd only spoken to the man on one occasion; he remembered he'd moved here after his divorce. The man had a son.

"Come on, your son, remember?"

"_Jack_."

"Yeah, yeah him. Got to keep awake for him, remember that now."

"Mm."

"Good, good, ambulance on its way." Nervously, he glanced around the room, making sure that he was truly alone.

And he'd thought he was moving to a good neighborhood.


	6. Nervous

**Criminal Minds**

"**Nervous" **

With his hair tucked under the Redskins cap JJ had insisted he wore, Spencer Reid took his seat for his first major league football game. For the first time, he felt out of his element. What did he know about football? There was a ball, it was kicked, people screamed "hut". That was about it. He took a deep breath and forced himself to watch the little brown weirdly shaped ball be kicked across the field.

"Nervous, Spence?"

JJ's voice was close by him, closer than she'd ever been. This was different than sitting on the jet. This was just the two of them.

That only made him more nervous.

"I…" He swallowed. "Honestly, JJ?" He gestured his hand out towards the field, where someone had screamed 'touchdown'. He'd thought that was in baseball. "I have no clue what's going on."

JJ grinned. "Don't worry, Spence. I won't tell."


	7. Return

**Criminal Minds**

"**Return"**

"Welcome back, Mr. Hotchner."

He blinked heavy eyelids, allowing hazy light to filter through. Memory came rushing back with a vengeance, crashing against his skull almost painfully. There was enough agony to deal with already, the crushing agony in his side from the gun Foyet had fired was only slightly dulled by whatever drug the hospital was giving him. He tried not to gag on the tube in his throat.

"Collapsed lung, sir. Try to relax."

Easier said than done, when Foyet was still out there … and so was his son, his team… what if he went after them next?

As if reading his mind, the man Hotch saw as just an outline spoke to him again. "Your entire team has refused to leave the hospital until they got certain news you were alright. Your son and wife are here as well. I'll tell them so."

Agent Hotchner didn't even bother mentally correcting him to _ex-wife_.


	8. Guilt Morgan

**Criminal Minds**

**Guilt **– **Morgan**

He'd been the one to take her to Jamaica.

That fact, that sole fact, was the main point that ran through his mind, an obsessive, angry thought that pounded like a jackhammer in the inside of his skull, hurting him almost physically.

He knew, in some section of his brain, that there was no way this was his fault. The Fisher King had found the rest of their team without any help from him – he hadn't had to take them to the place where he was staying to have them be found.

But she was the only one who had been shot.

And, as he stared through the window at Elle Greenaway's sleeping form, machines beeping and humming, another thought haunted his mind –

Did she blame him too?


	9. Crawl

**Crawl**

Sometimes, he felt as if he were still a child, crawling. For all his genius, all his wisdom, all his work and study, he still crawled. The wish was there – the desire to walk, to run, but for now he still crawled, a mere child. He crawled because he couldn't save them all, all of the victims, even when they turned out to be the monsters, couldn't stop the kids from dying in front of him, and couldn't catch enough monsters to make the monsters in his mother's head leave, to drown the memories he wished he didn't have.

Sometimes, he felt as if he were crawling.


	10. Chopsticks

**Criminal Minds**

**Chopsticks**

Seeing the genius unable to use those two simple pieces of wood reminded us – or me, at the very least – of who he was underneath all of the facts and statistics, under the Kevlar vest and behind the gun.

He was a man who hadn't had as many experiences as the rest of us had, yet had managed to become one of the top FBI agents. By all accounts, he should have struggled with all he dealt with – but he didn't. I refused to think it had solely to do with his IQ. No, Spence was something different all together – a success because of himself, whether or not he realized it.

Maybe that was why I gave him the rubber band. If he didn't have to struggle, why should he? Though now that I think about it – he would have succeeded on his own.

I just think that sometimes, he shouldn't have to.


	11. Winning

**Criminal Minds**

**Winning**

They say that I won. They say that I'm alright, that I'm here and he's dead. They want me to move on, but I can't move on when

_I still feel him_.

When it still hurts? How can I possibly leave it all behind and pretend it didn't happen?

_Maybe they could, but I can't. _

How can they tell me he won't come back? This is how victims feel. I'm not a victim. I don't want to be a victim. I'm not a victim.

They say that I won. Maybe they're right.

_Here's to winning_


	12. Hide and Seek

**Criminal Minds**

**Hide and Seek **

It's like she's playing hide and seek, but she's the only player. She's hiding from her past, from the memories that plague her consciousness. She hides from them as if they're the UnSubs we chase. She hides behind herself, behind brains, bravery, strength, and smart remarks. She thinks that we can't see behind the cracks in her walls.

But we do.

She seeks redemption. She seeks closure. She seeks acceptance in a group that's already accepted her. She seeks completion, and compassion. She seeks love, safety, a savior.

She's the only player in her game of hide and seek, but all I want to do is find her.


	13. Till It's Gone

**Criminal Minds**

**Till it's Gone**

Have you ever heard the song that claims "you don't know what you've got till it's gone?" I'm sure that you remember it. I remember it, and my head's a mess right now.

You see, I've always known what I have.

I've just never known why.

Why me?

But right now, as I hear the sound of that ambulance explode, all I can do is want him back.


	14. Broken

**Criminal Minds **

**Broken**

_Five ribs, two foot bones. _

_He's been broken by a devil. I know he thinks his captor wasn't evil, just confused, unable to stop, but I dare you to find a man on our team who can't help but feel hate towards him. Maybe it was something that only the two of them and God will know. All I know is that it's over. _

_Five ribs, two foot bones. _

_He may have broken him physically, but I won't let his spirit remain broken. _


	15. Genius

**Criminal Minds**

**Genius**

He's going to hurt her. This simple fact is all that I can think when he drags her away by her hair. She did this to protect me – protect _me_ – when it should have been the other way around. It would have been the other way around if Morgan was here, instead of me. I know that this man won't kill a woman, but would kill me – but I can't help it. I can't help but wish I'd taken the beating for her, even if it had cost me my life.

I'm helpless. The genius is helpless. My brilliance can't help her. What use am I to anyone? I couldn't even stop her from offering herself in my place.

I'm so sorry, Emily. I'm so sorry.


	16. Coward

**Criminal Minds**

**Coward**

It was so easy to find on the Internet, but for all its ease, I did nothing about it. Who I am is weak, a coward, frightened and unable. He's my friend. He was close by enough in the hospital that they put him in. It would have been easy. It _should_ have been easy.

But, like I said, I'm a coward.

And then the next time it was Hotch – Hotch, who had something more than Morgan's strength of Reid's genius; Hotch, who was infallible, the leader- he'd been tortured in his own home.

I could tell him what not to do – what not to do when you're afraid of going back home. I could offer him that, at the very least.

Am I still a coward?


End file.
